


The life worth living

by Virtawiiru



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood, Gen, Growing Up, I will be adding tags as the story unfolds, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 19:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4275579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtawiiru/pseuds/Virtawiiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is a scary place, especially for a child. But the world is meant to be conquered, the world is meant to be seen as it truly is. The life is meant to be lived as the best you can do. The best Maria Hill can do. Life is meant to be full of sadness, happiness and joy, those are the feelings a person will feel throughout their life. But the difference is, what to do when you feel those feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first peek into the world

**Author's Note:**

> So this story is basically about Maria Hills life and childhood, going all the way up to the SHIELD days, depending on how much stuff I feel like writing. I will be doing a larger collection of stories so feel free to give comments if you want to see something, I will most likely write stuff you guys like :D

It is said, that the world is no place for a weak person, but the truth is - it is. The world is just the right place for the weak. The weakest of them all is truly the strongest one. That person is still there, alive, fighting - that person is strong because they know what it is to be weak, to be nothing, to survive. That person appreciates life, life that they were given, and most importantly, that person will achieve things others think are not worthy of their time. Those things are breathtaking, beautiful and meaningful, those are the things that the strongest of them all should be doing. That is how the weakest of them all becomes the strongest. By living, and not giving up.  
  
  


\-- 

The day was bright. There were no clouds in the sky. It was only filled with the shades of blue over the city full of people. People who had no idea of the things going on behind the curtains that were before their eyes, the curtains they didn't even know about.

But those curtains were there - they shielded them from the things they wished not to see. The people wished to believe that the world they lived in was completely safe, that there were no bad things in their lives, in other people's lives, but there were. There were a lot of bad things happening in the world, even as we speak.

Those curtains in their eyes might not cover them from the light of the sun, the light of the world, but it would shade their view of the real world.

The world that was everything but safe. But the good thing was, that there were people who were willing to risk their lives, everyday, to keep that very same world safe for the people who wished not to see the bad things. Those people - the people who tried to keep the world safe, they couldn't protect the world from all the misery it encountered, but they were still making the world a better place. One fight at a time.

Piece by piece they were making the puzzle of the safer world, but then, once again, a person - someone bad, a vicious human being, would crash that puzzle into millions of pieces it was made of, and they had to begin that build once again. They would never be able to complete that puzzle, as the world would never be completely safe because of the human nature, but they tried to make out the picture in the puzzle as they repaired it. It was a beautiful picture. The picture was filled with peace, love and it was full of perfect colors, every color one might wish to see. Those were the things the world was filled with, or at least it had once been, but humans were tearing those things down as they broke that puzzle down again, and again.

This is the story of a just one person, a person who opened those curtains before her eyes. How she would see the world as it truly was - she would see the horrible things, but after seeing them she would see the puzzle being put back together once again, she would find those people who helped the world, and eventually she would become one of those people too.

They day might have been bright, but the world wasn't.

\-- 

Maria Hill was five-years-old, when she saw through those curtains the first time. It had been just a peek, a fast peek before they closed again for a while, but it had been the first memory she remembered about the cruel world that was showing its nature every day, even in her own house, her own life. It had been the first day of kindergarten, when she saw that the things her father did her daily, were something completely abnormal, that instead they were bad, really bad things she did not deserve to feel, see or hear. Not ever. But at that time, she just thought it was normal, that her father just made sure she was behaving properly, with his fists, with his cruel words and his constant actions.

Even at the age of five, Maria Hill's eyes told a story of an old person. A person who had seen things in their past, things they wished they hadn't seen. Her eyes were emotionless, cold, they lacked the warmness of a child.

Her father hadn't bothered to walk her inside the classroom, but instead had left her at the gate, not even bothering to get out of the car to do the 'I'm-going-miss-you-sweetie' make-believe act, but instead had grabbed her wrist before she had got out of the front seat of the car, and stared into her eyes.

She had learned at an even younger age what those stares meant. They meant that if he heard anything, from anyone, about her, about her doings, her behavior, her feelings, she would regret it. Badly.

It meant that she was not to talk unless addressed, and to tell nothing about herself, stay calm, keep quiet and not let anyone get close because people only hurt other people, they were bad. They get what they need and leave you hanging, alone in the world. They betray you.

So when Maria Hill got out of the car, with her worn and shabby clothes, that were clearly unfit for her - the thin arms that were too long for the shirts sleeves and the legs that wore pants that were too big for her with socks that looked oddly new. He had bought those socks a week ago. He told her that those were to keep in a perfect shape - he didn't need to be told by the bystanders about his filthy daughter not being taken better care of.

She entered the school. It was a huge school, a kindergarten in the big city of Chicago. Maria Hill had never seen so many people, so many kids, so happy, so full of life and happiness. No care of the world. The parents looked happy, they cared. She stood at the beginning of the long, colorful hallway filled with bright and gaudy drawings of houses, families, fruits, animals, whatever might come into a child's mind.

Maria Hill stood there, quiet, savoring the moment she believed to be the happiest thing she had ever seen - even if she wasn't part of it.

She saw as two young boys, about her age, who had probably just met each other - she figured since it was the first day after all - were running and chasing each other, yelling, as they had smiles so wide across their faces that it looked like it would stretch their mouths and they would never be able to close them again. It gave Maria a sad feeling in her stomach. But still, she was happy. She didn't show it on her face, but she felt somehow happy. A feeling she so seldom felt. She was a quiet child. She wasn't shy, she just liked to observe others. Make notes on their behavior. How they acted, what made them mad, what made them happy, what made them who they were. She had done that a while now, whenever her father took her somewhere she would stay quiet like told, and just watch her surroundings. She thought it to be fun, watching how people lived, acted.

So now, as there were so many people going haywire all over the place, she tried to concentrate on all of them, but soon noticed it was impossible. With her school bag in her back she made her way, slowly, avoiding the gazes of people around her, but still somehow looking at them, to the classroom that had the number 15 on it. It had read on the paper her father had given her. She already knew how to read numbers and words well, some still needed work, but she was getting there. She wasn't the fastest reader, not yet, she made a lot of mistakes, but she knew how to read.

As she stood on the doorway, admiring the place, the cleanness, the size of the room, the colorful things in the room, kids were sprinting around her, making their ways inside the room, not really looking around, just playing together and having fun. The room had 7 tables, all the colors she could think of. The chairs matched each table, green, red, yellow, blue and many others. There were pictures on the walls. She was drawn to look at those pictures, and as she made her way to the other side of the classroom she noticed a older woman watching her moves. The parents of the children had been left outside of the room, it was the policy of the first day. No parents past the doorway, she had picked up listening to the conversations passing her ears.

She now stood below the arts, they didn't make much sense to her, but they made her smile internally. A small grin of longing and sadness crawled out to her small face as her eyes moved on from picture to picture.

The older woman had ended her conversation and was now sitting behind a desk and Maria presumed she was waiting for the class to settle down.

The children were still going around, jumping and skipping, but slowly they began to find their places on the tables.

The teacher looked around the classroom and once again stopped her gaze at her, as Maria lowered her eyes from the pictures and walked slowly to one of the empty chairs left.

She sat down and put her bag down, set it on the back of the chair as some of the other children had. Then she looked at the woman in the chair. She gave the woman a small smile, telling her that they were ready.

And then the woman spoke. "Welcome to the Eagle Park Preschool, I am your teacher Laura Mitchell, you may call me 'miss. Mitchell' and as we are now all settled down, shall we begin our journey."


	2. Belong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is it like to belong? What is it like to fear? What is it like to give up? What is it like to be taught things the way someone else has been taught? What makes us who we are?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, been busy with work and stuff. To be honest, I have no idea where this story is going, but we'll see as I keep writing it, haha. :D

The world is a strange place. It's filled with life, but it is also filled with death. And death is something that is remembered, it is inevitable and it happens to everyone, but life is something that people forget, what most people are afraid of, they are scared of what they might do if they actually lived. What would happen to them, would their life's be better, would they be able to fulfill their dreams?  
  
Sure, people fear death in their darkest hours, when they think of the unknown, but they fear living more. They live their whole life, but they only die when it is their time, whether they believe in karma, faith or in nothing, death still comes to claim their soul, their body and their mind.  
  
A 8-year-old Maria Hill didn't know whether she was scared of life, whether she was scared of death either. She knew her mother had died, she knew it had made her father's life a living hell. She knew that her mother had died giving birth to her, she knew her father blamed her for that. She hadn't met her mother, but she still remembered her in her heart.  
  
Maria Hill was a loner of a kid. She talked to people when they were nice to her, she stayed out of sight as much as possible and she didn't really care if the kids bullied her. At least she told herself that whenever they did. At least they weren't as bad as her father, she thought.  
  
She never picked fights, at least yet, but she couldn't stand people bullying kids who couldn't defend themselves. She had enough of that in her own home, and she knew how it felt, so whenever she could, she would step in. Even if it meant that her father would hear of it, even if it meant that she would have to pay for it at home. She could take it, she had to.  
  
Maria Hill was a loner of a child, because she was afraid of what her father would do in front of the other kids, kids that might be her friends. Kids that might not know how to act around people like her father.  
  
Maria Hill didn't want to be alone in the world. She was 8-years-old. She didn't deserve to be alone. That was when she saw through the curtains the second time. She didn't deserve to be alone. She was finally starting to understand it. She didn't know how it felt when she would see kids going home, happy, full of joy on seeing their parents but she knew she should have something like that, too. Maybe someday she would. Maybe if she just waited long enough someone would help her out, someone would give her the things she should already have. Someday.  
  
But for now she just wanted to belong. She belonged to the class. Often enough she felt like she belonged. That's why she would stay behind after the class would end and help out the teachers, or just stay in one of the classrooms watching the kids go out. One day she might be able to join them with no fear of life, fear of belonging.  
  
She didn't want to tell anyone about what happened in her home, she was too embarrassed. She didn't know why she was. She didn't know. She would often think of asking help from the teachers but when the actual time came she would freeze. She could see it deep in the back of her head. The things that would follow if she asked help. The things she would go through. They were not worth it. Things could be worse, she kept telling herself.  
  
Sometimes, when things got real bad at home, she would deliberately lift the sleeves of her shirt to show a bruise here or there on her arms, just to see if someone would ask where they came from as she played in the yard with the other kids near the teachers. But no one ever dared to ask. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe they were too scared themselves.  
  
But Maria Hill was still a child. She was still new to the world. She still enjoyed her life when it was good. When things were going great at school, when she would get perfect marks on her tests, when she would get to play with the other kids. When she would feel happy. When she would feel like she belonged.  
  
She was beginning to see the things that her father taught her about people weren't always true. That there were good people in the world. Kids were nice sometimes, adults were respectful.  
  
So, one day, when she was going to school after a bad morning with her father, she saw a kid being bullied by the annoying three bullies that ruled the whole class with their presence. She had had enough. She was about to give up on that day anyways, at 8 am. Things couldn't get worse even if her father would hear, she figured. So she decided to step in on the boys stealing a smaller kids' books, throwing them back and forth, enjoying the pain that was in the eyes of the 8-year-old child's as he asked them to give his stuff back.  
  
The kid was nice, his name was Jack. He would talk to her, sit with her sometimes when she was alone and ask her to come play with them whenever he saw her passing by. He was really her first crush. It was the least she could do to help him out. Hell, maybe the teachers would finally do something about the bullies when one of their best student had to intervene.  
  
One of the boys, the biggest one of them, he wasn't big in size, but the tallest and most frightening looking threw one of the books towards the smallest and most innocent one. Maria grabbed the book from the air and set it down on the ground next to Jack without any hesitation, without any word, just a small smile towards Jack when he looked at her with fear, with surprise.  
  
"What do you think you're doing, hobo?" the leader of the gang burst out as he caught a book that was thrown at him.  
  
"Hobo? That's the best you can do? Really? It's been years, you need to make up some new insults. Now, if you don't mind giving Jack his things before the teacher comes. You wouldn't want to be seen picking the teachers favorite student, now, would you?" She blurted out without thinking much of it, with a face that was surprisingly scary and murderous.  
  
"She can speak! Alert the media, she has spoken, with a teeny-tiny voice, what are you? A mouse?" the smallest of the boys laughed but soon reverted back to his normal stand as she slowly turned her head towards him.  
  
She looked at each of the boys one at a time, looking more and more like a lunatic as the seconds went by, daring them to come at her. It gave her great joy as she saw the smiles of the boys drop and slowly turn into a serious face.  
  
One more step and they are so going to run away, she thought as she took a fast, menacing step towards the leader. But oh boy was she wrong. The boy lifted his fist out of instinct and the noise when he hit her right in the forehead was so loud. When she fell to the ground with a speed of lightning, she could feel her head hit the pavement and then everything went black for a second or two.  
  
The boys started running the second they heard her hit the ground with a small thump and a screeching voice that escaped from her mouth.  
  
Thankfully they didn't get far as one of the teachers had seen most of the incident and was now yelling at them to stop.  
  


\-- 

"I-I-I didn't mean to, she came at me, we just stood there, she attacked us," the leader of the gang stuttered in the principal's office.

"You were picking on Jack, I just stepped in so you idiots would stop it!"

"Hey, watch your language, young lady."

"Now, I'm sure that this little girl, Miss. Hill, wasn't trying to attack you, what possible reason would she have for that? She is much smaller than you, she isn't physically as powerful as you, has no one ever told you boys not to hit women? They cannot stand as much pain as you can..." The principal went on and on, trying teach the boys in her ways, like she had been taught.

"Not as much pains as they can... Pfft - I'm the one with the black eye and they are the ones crying, this is total bullshit," you could hear the young girl mouth under her breath, just loud enough for the boys sitting next to her hear.

She wasn't going to let those words slide. She wasn't going to let anyone tell her she couldn't take a beating. But at the same time, she was beginning to think about things. Was she really that weak? Was she not powerful enough to hit them back? Why should she even need to defend herself? She shouldn't need to be doing that, anyways. She didn't like violence, yet she saw it everywhere she raised her eyes towards. Maybe they were cruel words, maybe they were physical sometimes, maybe they were actions of injustice but it still happened. She didn't understand why. Why people needed to hit, hurt and make other people suffer. She didn't know. Maybe she would never know. Maybe she would find the answers one day during the sleepless nights or maybe someone else would find the answers for her. 

She could only hope.

Maybe her mother would have known the answers, but didn't get to share them with her. Maybe she would find out the answers and tell them to her mother when her time came to pass to the other side. If she ever got there. She was hoping it wouldn't happen soon, she wasn't ready to go yet, she needed answers, she needed more questions to find answers to, in the meanwhile.

After that day, Maria Hill went to the boxing club near the mall. She decided to stay there for a while. Just watching and seeing things from far. She was too young to do anything in there, she was too poor, too, but she was determent to not be "physically less powerful and not stand enough pain". She was going to show them that she was not weak. She was not afraid of belonging, of being a woman, of letting that get in the way. 

She was going to get answers. That's what her mother would have taught her, she was sure of it.

Someday she would show them, someday she would get those answers.

She would make her mother proud of her. She was sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this isn't too odd to read, again, I have no idea where I'm going with this, but I have something in the back of my mind, and stuff. We'll see. Okay... I have a lot of ideas where this is going, but I haven't just had the time to word them out, so feel free to give me any ideas if you want.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I live in Finland so forgive me for any of the wrong things about preschool and kindergarten in America and that kind of stuff (+ it's been like almost 16 years since I was in kindergarten so I have no memory of what the hell happens in there...) :D
> 
>  
> 
> If anyone has been wondering why I haven't posted anything in a LONG time, it's because I've been working on and off with these stories for the past... Year? or so. Feel free to read the couple other ones I've written last year if you're interested :D Nothing is really ready for the new ones but I got a lot of drafts so I will post things as I get them done... Looks like I'm a summer vacation writer lmao.. I will continue this story as I get more and feel free to keep an eye on the collection, I might post other stories that belong to the same story line. Feel free to give a comment if you want to see something specific in this story, It's in the early stages so everything is possible


End file.
